2017-03 Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa's
Groundscraper exhibition is currently up at The
School of
Architecture of The
Cooper Union, at the Dean's
Wall. This
exhibition is part
of a fund raising
initiative by Dean Nader Tehrani to
support the free
tuition policy at
The Cooper Union.
The exhibition of
this project became
a project in itself,
carried out to
represent some of
the ideas developed
at ARCH
177/482B course lead
by Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa
where students
develop the means
and conditions to
represent, draw and
build their
own projects.

From coding, to fabrication, the Groundscraper
exhibition
project is phased
through several
means of actualizing
the conditions that
the project
activates: from
diagrams that
activate the coding
implemented to
create the informed
field reacting to
the existing
topography of the
site; to a
digitally fabricated
series of
model-drawings-inscriptions
that activate the
spatial qualities
and logic of
the project. The
exhibition phases
from two dimensional
digital codings
dealing with the
relationship between
the topography of
the site and the
typology of the
project; to relief
inscriptions that
activate the
background of the
canvas as well as
the figuration of
the project and the
tension between the
two, aiming to
activate the desired
tension between the
site and the
emergent quality of
the project that
aims to redefine the
site, but from the
latent conditions of
geological
origination of the
rock formations that
create its special
topo-logos. In the
exhibition, the
drawing progressively
becomes a physical
model, by expanding
dimensionally the
topography of the
project activating
the figuration of
the project,
tensioning the
canvas-frame of the
exhibition.

The
technology
implemented (CNC
milling machine) to work
out the
model-drawings-inscriptions
was developed by
Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa based on the groundscraper project for Las
Grutas in Uruguay (e-architects) with the assistance of
students at The
Cooper Union: Gabriel Munnich and Yaoyi
Fann and from
related research that was initiated through several courses at ARCH
177-482 computer
course lead by Prof.
Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa
"Machines to Draw
and Build". This
course aims to
expand authorship to
the design
mechanisms that
prescribe a
digitally developed
project, such as the
background coding
computer languages
used to draw and the
digital fabrication
technologies and
machines used to
build. The intention
of this project is
that students would
eventually develop
their own tools as
part of the
expansion of a
project.
For more information
on these themes:
Groundscraper
Project East Uruguay;
Arch 177-482B;
machines to draw and
build